The November/December 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs includes parallel statements on U.S. foreign policy by John McCain and Hillary Clinton. The McCain text is titled “An Enduring Peace Built on Freedom: Securing America’s Future.” The Clinton contribution is striking in its formulaic banality. Clinton’s views have clearly not changed since the 1990s. Her posture of exaggerated nostalgia for the “simple and good times” during her husband’s presidency is noted and echoed by anti-Bush partisans at home and abroad. While most of Clinton’s essay, titled “Security and Opportunity for the Twenty-first Century,” is predictable in its rhetoric, some of it is truly alarming. She declares, “We will have to replenish American power by getting out of Iraq.” She explains, “We must withdraw from Iraq in a way that brings our troops home safely, begins to restore stability to the region, and replaces military force with a new diplomatic initiative to engage countries around the world in securing Iraq’s future.” Clinton offers no timeline or conditions. Her arguments are a mere word-salad. It should be obvious that there is no way to turn a hasty withdrawal from Iraq into a contribution to Mideast security, or even a modest “beginning” of such an contribution. Also disturbing is Clinton’s happy-face view of Vladimir Putin. Clinton inventories the Russian politician’s interference with the process of Kosovo independence, attempts at energy blackmail, rejection of cooperation with the West on arms control, apparent desire for the reestablishment of Soviet-style rule, complicity in economic corruption, and adventurism on the borders of the Muscovite regime. But then Clinton asserts, “It is a mistake, however, to see Russia only as a threat … We need to engage Russia selectively on issues of high national importance, such as thwarting Iran’s nuclear ambitions … and reaching a diplomatic solution in Kosovo.” Every day, Putin becomes more unfriendly to America’s goals in Iran. Serbia and Russia are already busily ignoring U.S. diplomacy on Kosovo. Lost in her fantasies, Hillary Clinton cannot anticipate events, but can only react to them. That is the antithesis of political leadership.
